Environment
infections. If you must reuse a needle, make sure it has been cleaned thoroughly, ideally using household bleach (hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol are also acceptable), followed by a thorough rinse with cold water. No matter how well you clean used equipment, it is still possible to transmit blood-borne infections, which is why obtaining a stock of new equipment is the ideal and safest option.
• The best physical environment is one where you have
privacy, can take as much time as you need, have access to clean running water, have protection from the weather, and are unlikely to encounter law enforcement. • Safest locations: your home or the home of a trusted friend or family member with naloxone close by. • High risk locations: subway cars, stairwells, public parks • If you are using in a public restroom, try to choose a private room with a door that locks to avoid strangers walking in BUT make sure to unlock as soon as you finish your hit.
Injection Instructions 1. Cooking: Dissolve your powdered or solid drugs into liquid form so they can be injected • Using a fresh cooker or metal spoon (ideally one which hasn’t been used by anyone else), mix a single dose with a small amount of clean water • Many drugs (ex. black tar or powdered heroin) require heating to dissolve fully, while others (ex. meth) will dissolve without heat. • If your cooker still contains solid material after cooking, try reheating it. If reheating does not work the solid material may be contaminants, which you can filter out with a cotton.
Who You Are With
• When possible, it is ideal to get high in the
company of someone you know and trust, who could offer help if you become sick or accidentally overdose. However, being high could put you in a vulnerable position with certain people. It is better to inject alone than with someone you don’t trust to respect you or to help you, if you needed it. If alone, make sure to tell someone you trust even if they are somewhere else. Never Use Alone is a support hotline and great option if there isn’t anyone you can tell! Call Never Use Alone Hotline at (800) 484-3731 and someone will stay on the line with you while you use.
2. Filtering: Draw your cooked drugs from cooker to syringe through a cotton filter, which will catch particles and contaminants that may be unsafe to inject • Good filters: Cotton swabs or the cotton from a Q-tip. Syringe exchange programs can provide 100% cotton filters, which are safe and effective. • Risky filters: Cigarette filters, which contain small pieces of fiberglass, or tampons that contain synthetic material (100% cotton tampons are safe to use) • Some like to save old cottons to cook up later when drugs are limited, but this can be dangerous! Old wet cottons quickly grow bacteria and fungus, which may cause fever and a flu-like illness when injected. • To avoid wanting to reuse old filters, you may try eating 100% cotton filters after use. It will pass through your body safely and can give you a mild high from the cotton’s residue. • Once you’ve drawn your drugs into your syringe, hold the syringe with needle tip facing up, tap out any air bubbles you see in your syringe, and carefully push the liquid contents to the tip of the needle
Mindset
• Before you get out your injection equipment, pause
for just a second to assess your state of mind. If you are feeling panicked or are experiencing intense withdrawal, consider sniffing a small amount of your drugs to take the edge off. Calming yourself down will help you inject safely, avoiding accidents (injury, unsanitary injection, or spilling your drugs) which may happen in a state of panic. Remember to start low and go slow.
New and Clean Equipment Before you begin, wash your hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer, if possible. Needles and syringes should ideally never be reused. Injecting with used needles is the most common way infections and viruses are transmitted between people using drugs. Even if it looks like blood has been cleaned off, infectious diseases can be transmitted by microscopic amounts of blood, which are inevitably left behind on used equipment. Additionally, needles grow dull after just a few injections and dull needles cause trauma to your skin and veins, a set up for pain and
3. Finding an injection site: To prevent your favorite veins from being damaged, leaky, or scarred and potentially unusable, it is important to rotate 2